Microsoft Beefs Up Enterprise Cloud Security with Aorato Acquisition

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Microsoft announced on Thursday that it has acquired Israeli enterprise cloud security company Aorato for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in 2011 by Israeli Defense Forces veterans, Aorato uses machine learning to detect suspicious activity on a company’s network, according to a blog post by Microsoft corporate vice president, Cloud and Enterprise Marketing, Takeshi Numoto.

Aorato’s Organizational Security Graph is a “living, continuously-updated view of all the people and machines accessing an organization’s Windows Server Active Directory,” Numoto said. “AD is used by most enterprises to store user identities and administer access to critical business applications and systems.”

Numoto also said that Aorato’s solutions “will complement similar capabilities that we have developed for Azure Active Directory, our cloud-based identity and access management solution.”

Back in July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft was in talks with Aorato, with a person familiar with the matter expecting the deal to be in the $200 million range.

As part of the acquisition, Aorato will stop selling its Directory Services Application Firewall product. According to a statement on its website announcing the acquisition, Aorato plans to “share more on the future direction and packaging of these capabilities at a later time.”

With Microsoft fighting for a larger share of the public cloud market, extending its enterprise security capabilities in the cloud will certainly help achieve this goal, especially as AWS touts its strong enterprise adoption.

Last month, Microsoft announced several updates to Microsoft Azure aimed at handling high-performance workloads, including a partnership with big data software provider Cloudera.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/microsoft-beefs-enterprise-cloud-security-aorato-acquisition